Vinarterta: Viking Christmas Cake

Few Christmas traditions are as culturally sacred to Canada’s ethnic Icelanders – nor as touchy, for that matter – as the baking of a 150-year-old fruitcake.

Vinarterta is a hefty, layered torte customarily served in rectangular slices, usually with coffee, and ideally by a doting Amma (grandmother). In thousands of kitchens across the continent this week, members of the Icelandic diaspora are almost guaranteed to devour the prune-filled, shortbread-layered confection…

by Glenn Sigurdson

This site is copyright Glenn Sigurdson 2014.All rights reserved. Photos by Glenn Sigurdson and Robert Taylor. Video by Paul Sigurdson. Music by Sol Sigurdson. Book cover image by Robert Pollock. Website by Chris Tucker.